The new technique is straightforward. The magic sauce is a liquid metal: an alloy of gallium and indium which is liquid at room temperature. They simply pump it through an inkjet printer to create a fine spray of liquid metal droplets that settle onto the substrate.

Perhaps most exciting of all is that the technology behind all this is cheap and simple: there’s no reason why it couldn’t be pushed to market very rapidly. And that raises the prospect of being able to print prototype circuits in small businesses and even at home.